Tomb Raider: My Lara Croft is a real woman

Tomb Raider's makeover has been masterminded by video games veteran Rhianna
Pratchett. On the day avid players will meet the new Lara Croft for the
first time, in an exclusive piece for Telegraph Wonder Women, she
explains how she came up with her personality and why the pneumatic boobs
have gone.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider will be exclusive to Xbox One - initially at least

Although she wasn’t the first female videogames character, Lara Croft is arguably the most famous. With millions of fans worldwide and a history spanning nearly 17 years across both game and film titles, the task of rebooting and re-imagining such a well-known virtual figure was never going to be an easy one. And I should know, as I’ve just spent the last two and a half years doing exactly that.

Despite being a gamer since I was six, as well as being a former games journalist, I’ll admit that in the past I've had a bit of an uneasy relationship with Lara Croft. I played (and loved) the first game and a bit of the second, but after that something in me rebelled against the fact that she was turned into a pin-up girl with more focus on what she had out front than she had between the ears. It didn’t appeal to me, and in fairness was never meant to. But such is the nature of avatars, especially when they are designed with a predominantly male audience in mind, as Lara undeniably was at the time.

Lara Croft of old

Old Lara definitely had her female fans (as The Telegraph’sLouisa Peacock demonstrated in her piece last week) but what she didn’t have was a properly fleshed out origin story which players could experience for themselves. She was a character that had the guns, the gadgets and the glib one-liners to deal with any situation. She was like Teflon - nothing stuck to her, nothing touched her, nothing changed her. As a character that was extremely limiting - even Bond and Batman get origin stories and so it was decided that Lara should get one too.

So with that in mind we rewound Lara back to when she was 21, fresh from university and on her first big expedition. She’s definitely book-smart, geeky about archaeology and filled with a passionate ambition to find her own path through the world. And as for her visuals - gone are the pneumatic boobs, the midriff exposing tops and hot pants. She’s beautiful, but ultimately she looks like a young lady who has dressed herself.

However, although she’s been on a few digs and outward-bound expeditions in the past, Lara is far from being the hardened tomb raider we know of old. But then she’s never truly been tested in the way that she is in this game. So when she finds herself shipwrecked on an island, initially alone, with no weapons and facing extremely hostile inhabitants, she reacts in the way that many of us would, with fear and uncertainty. But this is Lara Croft. We know what she’s capable of, even if she doesn’t. And so our heroine makes the decision to live; to fight back against the odds. Not because she’s not scared, but despite it. No true bravery comes without fear. She typifies true British grit at work.

Lara Croft in this Tomb Raider - a 're-boot' of the franchise

Of course we knew that we were taking a risk. Players are not used to seeing Lara in that kind of position and rarely do videogames characters ever show fear, uncertainty or remorse. Some people will always like their heroes to be infallible; to plop out into the world as a full formed bad-asses. But personally, I believe that it’s far more interesting and absorbing to see where a character’s arc started, not just where it ended up. To not only watch, but experience, that strength, resilience and bravery bubble to the surface through action, reaction and self-discovery.

But Lara knows that there’s a job to be done. She steps up to the plate, forces herself to banish thoughts of what she’s having to do, and gets on and does it. She is not empowered by the gun in her hand, but by the fighting spirit within her - a pure survival instinct, she never knew she had. Likewise she’s not disempowered by the actions of those who stand in the way of her rescuing her friends and getting them home to their families. Everything the islanders try to take from her she takes back with interest.

Ultimately what makes this a relatively unique is experience is the medium itself. As a player you are right there in the thick of it as Lara’s encounters, painful and exhilarating, illuminating and destructive, shape, define and galvanise her. This is what videogames are about; the experience. You are not on a journey with Lara Croft. You are her.

Rhianna Pratchett is a 15-year veteran of the games industry and has written for titles such as Heavenly Sword, Mirror’s Edge and the Overlord series. She is the lead writer behind the newly rebooted Tomb Raider game, out today.